An Example of IT Infrastructure in Afghanistan

This tree, apparently dead for some time, stands outside of our pick-up point at Camp Eggers.  I've been looking at it for months now, admiring it for maintaining a purpose while deceased.  There is a shortage of timber here, so this tree still serves a viable purpose.  It now serves as a support pole for fiber and copper running along one of the streets.

My OSP team didn't run this...some other contractor, or the military, made these runs.  It doesn't look anywhere near as bad as the photos of this ilk that have their way onto the Internet of intersection power poles in some city in India or Hong Kong.  This is repairable, and if the situation stabilizes around here, I suspect we'll be directed to establish a standards-based run for these circuits.

The Man Who Would Be King

I just finished the book, The Man Who Would Be King; The First American in Afghanistan by Ben Macintyre.  I first saw the book for sale over at the ISAF compound, which is the NATO camp where all the political strap-hangers spend their time here in Kabul.  Most everything for sale requires Euros.  So, I always have 40 or 60 Euro on me whenever I traipse over there.  Anyway, they wanted something like 30 Euros for the book.  No way.  I ordered it on Amazon, bought it used, and spent a total of about $12 for it.

In order to gain a real appreciation for the book, one should have seen the classic movie titled the same as the book (without the subtitle).  It stars Sean Connery and Michael Cain (when they were young men) and they portray characters from the  short story by Rudyard Kipling about two British Army deserters in India who pass through the Khyber Pass and on to Kafiristan  to claim riches and thrones.  They both are rogues and Freemasons.  I liked their characters immediately.  As I find out now, Kafiristan is a real place.  It is a region of Afghanistan where wild tribesmen reside, far from the reaches of the Kabul government.  Kafir means "infidel," and this is the region where Islam couldn't successfully convert the populace.

Kipling based his short story on a real character, a Josiah Harlan, an American free spirit who spent 10 years in Afghanistan in the early 1800s.  Like the characters depicted in the movie, Harlan was a Freemason (like Kipling) and spent earlier years in India and served as a surgeon in the East India Company's Army.  Harlan changed alliances with the various nabobs and maharajahs during his time over here.  But in the years he spent here, he acted as a doctor, political appointee, governor of various regions in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, military leader and adviser,  and explored the remote regions beyond the well traveled Silk Road where the British thought there was no passageway.

The book is very well researched and written.  Besides providing an interesting tale of an early American adventurer, it portrays a period of Afghan history that is fascinating and that still has import during these days of Taliban insurgencies and American occupation.

Breakfast with the SECDEF

Yeah, I know, I haven't been posting recently.  There's a lot of reasons why.  First, my company imposed a sudden change of leadership a few weeks ago.  I now find myself in charge here in the Kabul area, holding down three jobs, and working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.  My energy for any extra curricular activities is running low.  Second, the US Embassy shut down its free Wi-Fi that I've been stealing these last five months and now I have to scramble to locate any kind of free Internet access.  The only one I've found so far has crappy data throughput.  And third, I've been too cheap to pony up money to pay for crappy Internet service, but now it looks like I'll be forced to.  One of my guys who is leaving has turned over $7k worth of satellite downlink gear for the Internet service he ran out of his safe house.  I, along with a couple of other techs, will be standing this system back up in the near future.  But, we'll have to pay the provider for the bandwidth.  I suspect I'll be forking out a couple of hundred bucks a month just to ensure that I have sufficient bandwidth to stock trade and do the geek things that I like to do when I return back to the house.

So, this morning I headed to camp and entered the DFAC for a quick breakfast.  I saw that the area I normally sit in was more crowded than usual, but I found a seat, plopped down, and began chowing down.  A couple of folks next to me finished their breakfast and left.  I looked around and noticed a gentleman sitting a few chairs from me on my left.  He looked familiar.  Then I put it all together.  Secretary Gates was here visiting the chain-of-command and assessing the strategies that Gen McChrystal has implemented here. 

For someone who is in a terribly stressful job, Gates looks pretty good, especially for as old as he is.  I figure if he can survive all the stress and strain of his job, I certainly can get through another seven more months of my three jobs.  Not that I'm counting the days, or anything...